Lauren Tabbron shares her favourite things to do in Manchester
Jess Astbury regales tales of festivities in warmer climates.
Have you ever seen the Pedro Almodóvar film, Volver? The opening sequence of this film depicts women busily working in a graveyard, cleaning and scrubbing the headstones of their loved ones. This film deals with the theme of death and the importance of family – even in the afterlife. Although the film is set in Spain, it touches on the annual Mexican celebrations of the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos. This three day fiesta begins on our Halloween, October 31st, when the spirits of the dead visit their families, and ends with their departure on November 2nd.
What I love about this tradition is that all of the frightening aspects of the afterlife are taken out of it. It’s a holiday about commemoration for loved ones. There’s nothing ghoulish or scary about cemeteries; in fact, most of the fiesta takes place in one! Families go down to their local cemeteries and tend to the gravestones by weeding them, cleaning them and placing fresh flowers around them. Children play around the headstones and are encouraged to invite demons and spirits to play with them. Special candles are burnt all through the night to help light the way for the dead to come back to earth; similarly, incense is burnt so that the dead can smell their way back!
The graveyard becomes a place for an all-night party: people bring their radios and guitars so everyone can sing and dance. Could you imagine sitting in a cemetery in England on Halloween? Traditionally in our culture, Halloween is a time when the veil between the worlds is thin, when spirits can come back to haunt and play tricks on us. In Mexico, this is the best part of the fiesta: that you get to see and party with your dead relatives again.
And what’s a party without food? Private altars are built in each house, decorated with photos and trinkets that remind the families of their deceased loved ones, and absolutely covered with food. A special sweet bread, pan de muertos, is baked, often in the shape of a skull or bones. Sugar skulls are moulded and decorated in imitation of the deceased. Yellow marigolds, sometimes called flor de muerto, are placed everywhere. There’s nothing dark or dismal about this fiesta: it is awash with bright colour and festivities! Mexicans have what I consider to be such a healthy attitude to death. It is mocked, not solemnised, and celebrated as the natural order of things. Certain phrases or euphemisms for death reflect the lighthearted attitude that characterises the Day of the Dead, for example: "La muerte es flaca y no puede conmigo" means "Death is skinny/weak and she can't carry me."
The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo includes a lot of the traditional Mexican death imagery in her paintings, particularly the skull and the joyful skeletons las calacas. Kahlo was in severe pain for much of her life due to a bus crash when she was a young woman, so death must have seemed particularly near for her. Yet her paintings are bold, full of colour and humour. I think we can learn something from the Mexican attitude to death. This Halloween, don’t dress up as a devil or a black witches cat – instead, paint a skull on your face and wear bright colours, burn candles, have a party, and dance.
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